bedrock

Power Athlete’s
Bedrock with an In-Season High School Wrestler

Bryce Wolcott MA,
MEd, CSCS

The Athlete

Justin began the
wrestling season this year with the ambitious goal of dropping from
190 pounds to the 168 pound weight class to unseat three-time
undefeated state champion Brian Shute, in a quest to do something truly meaningful in his life.

As a 120 pound
sophomore, I suggested that Justin head in a somewhat different
direction. Justin’s bodyfat is under 6%, and he is exceptionally
tall (5’10”) for his weight. We decided that, contrary to the path
most wrestlers take as the season begins, he would be most successful
in the in the long run by competing in a weight class ABOVE is
current weight. He would pursue his goal of being competitive at the state
tournament this year (and in years to come) by continuing to develop his Base Level of Strength.

Justin has spent a
limited amount of time in the weight room since beginning his
freshman year, but has never been on a program utilizing linear
progression long enough to take him to the end of his Novice Window,
and has yet to fully develop a Base Level of Strength. In addition,
he began wrestling just two years ago, and does not have much
athletic experience in general. Thus, he also lacks the speed and
agility of other successful wrestlers his age.

To ensure we
utilized his time in the Novice Window to the greatest effect, and
because of the integral presence of primal movements other than the
squat and press, Power Athlete’s Bedrockwas the obvious choice for Justin’s training template.

Weightroom
Training

Training
took place at before school 6:00AM, to allow for recovery before
afternoon wrestling practices. We followed the standard 4-day Bedrock
template presented in Power
Athlete’s Level One Methodology Course. The program was delivered, and a log of each training day recorded,
using the TrainHeroicapp.

As
each primal movement was introduced during Week 1, the movement was
coached according to Power
Athlete standards, and a
starting weight selected according to the guidelines presented here.
Justin was familiar with the squat, deadlift, press, bench
press, pull-up, and power clean, although each required slight
adjustments to his form to one
that would allow for better transfer of his training to the mat (e.g.
toes-forward on the squat, a neutral and vertical spine on the pull-up). Justin had never
been formally coached in the step-up or lunge. Starting weights on
the barbell exercises were chosen that challenged
technique, but did not change
it.

As
training progressed, we inevitably reached a day when Justin was
unable to complete the requisite 15 reps (5 for the deadlift) to
continue adding weight to the bar. As this point arrived with each
lift. we applied the reload and reset guidelines presented here.
After each lift reset, we
introduced Compensatory Acceleration to the movement. Train Fast
to Be Fast!

Sprints

Intensity
sprints (40 yard dash) were performed on Mondays before squatting. We
removed the volume sprints from the program, given the conditioning
demands already being placed on Justin during wrestling
practice. Instead, longer tempo runs (100m at 75%) were completed at
the end of the session on Thursdays, as a way to work on sprint
posture and mechanics.

The
40yd. sprints were hand-timed a cell phone by other high school
students, so their accuracy is somewhat suspect, but we recorded the average of Justin’s sprint times in each session (5 sprints
per session).

As is often the case when transitioning through the four stages of competence, things got worse before they got better. Justin’s sprint times initially increased
once we began focusing on mechanics. He began getting faster as
he was able to implement his improving mechanics with maximal effort.

Coach’s
Reflection

I’ve coached
young athletes in the squat for many years, and have seen many
variations. The combination of position cues used in the Power
Athlete squat were new to me, particularly the emphasis on keeping
the toes forward. In addition, the level of detail used by Power
Athlete coaches to describe the step-up and lunge was initially
surprising.

The foundation of
the Universal Athletic Position,
particularly in the three lower-body primals, made the squat,
step-up, and lunge much easier to coach. These movements are
each prescriptions for challenging this initial posture and position
by moving the pelvis about one of its three axes or rotation. Thus,
while the movements themselves are unique to the
athlete, the coaching cues are remarkably consistent between them.

Justin’s sprint
mechanics improved a great deal during the training. Flat-footed,
upright, arms flailing from side to side, I was genuinely concerned
that he would fall as he stumbled down the track during our initial
sprint session. After several weeks moving through appropriately
programmed warm-up routines, training the primal movements in the
weight room, and lots of steps on the wall and the track, he is a
much-improved sprinter. At first, I was not sold on the idea that a
wrestler needed to know how to sprint. As his sprint mechanics
improved, however, I also saw marked improvement in his footwork and
movement in the wrestling room.

The psychological
aspect of Justin’s training required extra attention in the weight
room. It became evident as weight was added to the bar that Justin
had little experience struggling to complete physically demanding tasks (this hurt him on the mat as well). Pushing Justin to
struggle against the heavy barbell on his back (or in his hands) led
to critical breakthroughs in his training. As he continues to develop
this skill, his mental strength will push his physical strength to
greater heights. The ability to grind through a tough situation is
one of those critical life lessons we can learn in the weightroom.

Recovery &
Nutrition

As training
progressed, the first reset the squat, deadlift, and press came
earlier than I expected. I initially thought that this may be due to
the fact that he is not a brand new lifter (i.e. he began the program
with some of the intermuscular coordination that would take a new
lifter 2-3 weeks to develop). I wanted to ensure that the 21 hours a
day he was not in the weight room or at wrestling practice were
devoted to sufficiently fueling (and recovering from) his training.
In our conversations, he revealed that he consistently sleeps about 7
hours a night. Another hour or two of sleep would be better, but I
found that his diet was likely the biggest obstacle to his progress.

At the beginning of
each season we discuss the importance of diet with our wrestlers.
Nutrition is critical in all athletic endeavors, but even more so in
a sport based on weight-classes like wrestling. The guidelines we
preach are based on the first few chapters of the Grappler’s Guide to Nutrition (Bernardi & Fry, 2005),
and more recently, Power Athlete’s guidelines.
Due to the additional time and effort required to plan and eat an
optimal diet, I find that most of my teenage athletes are severely
lacking in this important aspect of their performance.

After a few
specific discussions with Justin, I suspected that he too was falling
short in properly fueling his training. We began using Meal Logger,
an app that allowed him to create and share a photo journal of his
meals and snacks throughout the day. His photos revealed that he was
subsisting primarily on Goldfish®
crackers and clementine oranges. The next task is to guide his
transition to a diet based instead on animal proteins and vegetables.

Conclusion

A final advantage I
found to the Bedrock protocol is that the prescribed volume, while
high enough to stimulate adaptation, was not excessive, and did not
have a noticeable impact on Justin’s ability to perform during
practice and during competition. Justin will continue on the Bedrock
protocol through the remainder of this Novice Window, as he has
yet to reach 3 resets of both the squat and deadlift.

I look forward to
guiding many more young athletes through their Novice Window to a
develop and Base Level of Strength during the coming off-season.